Southeast Idaho is considered high desert; elevation is over 4,000 feet and precipitation is just 12 1/2 inches per year in Pocatello. The landscape is mountains and hills dotted with sagebrush, rabbitbrush and juniper trees. The soil is fertile but so arid that all those famous potatoes come from irrigated fields.

Record rains fell this summer and has made for scenery not even the locals have seen before.